Tucker Carlson addressed the Buffalo shooting on his Fox News show Monday night, downplaying the 180-page document allegedly posted online by gunman Payton Gendron referencing the “Great Replacement Theory.”
“What he wrote does not add up to a manifesto,” Carlson said. “It is not a blueprint for a new extremist political movement, much less the inspiration for racist revolution. Anyone who claims that it is lying or hasn’t read it.”
According to the Washington Post, the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host appeared to attempt to distance himself from Gendron and the conspiracy theory that white Americans are being “replaced” by people of color via immigration — an idea Carlson has raised many times on Fox News.
Gendron, 18, allegedly drove about 200 miles from his Broome County home in Conklin, N.Y., to target shoppers and workers at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Eleven of the 13 people he shot were Black; among the ten who died were Roberta Drury, 32, a former Cicero-North Syracuse High School student, and Andre “Drew” Mackniel Sr., 53, who has family in Syracuse and Auburn.
Authorities are investigating the attack as a racially-motivated hate crime after Gendron allegedly planned to shoot as many Black people as he could and terrorize non-white, non-Christian people to leave the U.S. Carlson called Gendron’s motivations “definitely racist” but didn’t reference the Great Replacement Theory that he and other Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik of Upstate New York, have reportedly espoused.
Carlson instead largely focused on the First Amendment, complaining about the “ruthlessness and dishonesty of our political leadership” while accusing those in power of trying to silence him.
“What is hate speech? Speech that our leaders hate,” Carlson said. “Because one mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud. That is what they are telling you. That is what they wanted to tell you for a long time, but Saturday’s massacre gives them a pretext and justification.”
The Daily Beast reports Carlson also referenced the 1990s Rwandan genocide and said the African country had “no more genocides” after its government removed ethnic classifications in its 2003 constitution. He recommended the U.S. similarly work towards “color-blind meritocracy” in an attempt to de-escalate racial tension.
“We have a moral duty to do this,” Carlson continued, “because all people have equal moral value, no matter what they look like. All lives matter, period.”
The New York Times reports replacement theory was originally promoted by white supremacists and far-right extremists, but gained attention in recent years through mainstream references by people like Carlson, who mentioned variations on the idea in more than 400 episodes since 2016. Gendron’s document did not specifically reference Carlson, according to the Post, but did highlight the theory.
RELATED:
NY ‘red flag’ law: Buffalo shooter’s previous threat raises questions
Buffalo shooting: President Biden, first lady to visit city